Stupid Luck and Happenstance, Thread II
- Thread starter Peabody-Martini
- Start date
yeah, that is bad. I served in the Dutch Army (conscript) with a guy named "De Pijper" with would tranlate to "cocksucker" in English. Think of all the fun the DI's had with him.
If Ken Kesey ever makes it back to California ITTL perhaps this episode will somewhat temper the cavalier attitude that existed during his involvement in the Merry Pranksters in regards to hard drugs.
Gods & Goddesses! Did the CIA screw the pooch on this on or what? Not only is Gloria the SO of a bad-ass Green Beret (with lots of Green Beanie 'Brothers' to help), but she is a Published Author of a great biography of Kat (and other works), and has the chops to pull off an expose of MKUltra without herself suffering negative consequences. She's too high-profile for the Government to try to [ahem] with her. IOTL, the '60s was decade of great societal change in the USA, and people were learning (Finally!!!) that the Government IS Lying - so it was also a period of great disillusionment as Houses of Cards toppled. If Gloria did an expose starting at the CIA, that would likely start a long process as skeletons started falling out of closets. "Yeah, I did this bad thing. But ole George, now HE did all of THIS bad stuff....." and so on up the food chain.
Then there's Cantwell F. Muckenfuss III. Of course he's got a IV too...
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This may be a good thing for the CIA in the long run if their mistakes and screw ups are exposed earlier, it may prevent a certain mentality and culture from setting in.
Because of the IOTL Cold War a lot of the things that were allowed that was less than ethical happened in the name of "National Security", this may force another overhaul of the various intelligence agencies and increase their overall professionalism.
We must remember that the United States is starting far behind their European counterparts and are still undergoing growing pains.
Because of the IOTL Cold War a lot of the things that were allowed that was less than ethical happened in the name of "National Security", this may force another overhaul of the various intelligence agencies and increase their overall professionalism.
We must remember that the United States is starting far behind their European counterparts and are still undergoing growing pains.
Not so sure. Gloria actually was pretty damn high useful in the intelligence gathering aspect, and also was a way too public asset.
This seems more likely to be one of those utter fuck ups where the head isn't even remotely aware of what one of the fingers of a hand it's actually doing.
Directors of CIA divisions have been drummed silently by this kind of screw ups.
Moreover take in consideration that Johnny WILL TELL Parker about the utter idiocy, what it will mean that the idiot trio is going to be soon in the main offices in Langley, looking like if in front of a firing squad...
What won't be so far of the truth as they would have an utterly pissed director, and the heads of the Divisions where Gloria, Parker and Johnny are part of, and even the part contrite, part outraged director of THEIR division.......
Because this was purely and simply an utter "Blue on Blue FUBAR"..... Even Johnny's call it could be excused, as the medical results from the German study in LSD were shared with the medical community, meaning that it only took a Psychiatrist and some time to get the same information WITHOUT exposing ALLIED ASSETS to drugs with potential dangerous effects.
In this case Johnny asked one of the best specialists in the world in order to know HOW to treat his girlfriend..... Johnny its more likely to get a slap in the wrist for what he did with the idiot trio......
.. Ironically i can imagine that Gloria may be actually integrated into the CIA in a higher level position as an unofficial reparation for the stupid act......
The trio however... Are going likely be in the road, fired and blacklisted to work again in the government....and out of irony, the pissed trio decides to become the first producers and distributors of illegal synthetic drugs in the US.....
My father-in-law went to school with a Phillip McCracken, while I had a class-mate in high school called Wayne Kerr. We called him Bruce.
Parents can be cruel and/or thoughtless with names.
Next to pissing of your cook, pissing of a doctor is among the things worthy of a Darwin Award. Pissing of the world's leading specialist team, one of them being a General... TARFU doesn't even begin to do justice to this situation.
Especially as scientist and especially doctors tend to share things with colleagues. Congratulations, the CIA just created some heavyweight detractors inside the scientific community.
Especially as scientist and especially doctors tend to share things with colleagues. Congratulations, the CIA just created some heavyweight detractors inside the scientific community.
This probably included pointing out that subjecting their choice of test subject for their little experiment had almost certainly cost the Agency a valuable asset, a voluntary one at that, and that anything they might get from her in future had to be considered tainted. After all, Ms. Steinem just MIGHT hold a grudge about the whole being drugged thing.
Back in the nineties a chap called Long that I worked with then proudly announced that he and the wife were going to call their baby son Miles (and he wasn't winding us up, he got seriously annoyed when we all fell about laughing thinking he was being funny). Finally when he realised "George, mate have you considered that.....", they had a complete re-think.
Part 91, Chapter 1416
Chapter One Thousand Four Hundred Sixteen
1st December 1960
Hindenburg, Upper Silesia
The instant he arrived at the freight depot Job saw that he had a major problem on his hands. Much of the produce that the invoice said was bound from the warehouses near Berlin wasn’t in the crates that had just been unloaded from the train. His job was on the line because his employer simply didn’t trust him. It was hardly Job’s fault. He had been told that during the war he had had suffered a shrapnel injury to the head, something that he had no memory of. It was one of many things that he had no memory of. There were times when his head was buzzing and then things went black. He would lose hours, if not days when that happened. The cruel irony was that he could remember the weeks leading up to his injury more clearly than he saw the world around him in the present with the summer spent in the horrifying meatgrinder that the stationary front in Southern Belarus became that summer forever burned into his mind.
Shaking off the memory that had just came to him unbidden, Job circled the affected numbers and wrote in the numbers of produce crates that had actually come in before giving a carbon copy to the clerk in the freight depot. In doing so, he was making it the management’s problem, but that was how he was supposed to do it, officially anyway. Unofficially, his boss would be furious about having to fight with the shipping company in order to get the produce here from wherever it had been diverted to or else getting them to cough up the money for a service that they had failed to provide.
Because of that it took far less time to load the crates into the Kombi than it should have. The customers that were depending of Job to deliver what he had, and no one was going to be happy.
Wunsdorf-Zossen
Olli looked up at the almost comically long barrel of the Jagdpanzer VII that was his latest ride. Dubbed the Skorpion by the crews that served on the vehicles, it could fire a tungsten cored 12.8cm shell at nearly three times the speed of sound. The issue that created involved the compromises that had been required to adapt the massive gun to the hull of a Panzer VII Lynx. That was what had happened when the old Jagdtiger was deemed completely unsuitable for further operations and a lighter, more practical, vehicle was called for that still kept the devastating power of the main gun.
The open topped turret was a similar solution that the Americans had made with their M-18 tank destroyer years before. Even as wide and as long as it could be designed, the main gun took up much of the interior space. Crammed into one side was the Panzer Commander and the Gunner, that was hardly unique to this particular vehicle. On the other side were the Loader and the Assistant Loader. The Loader ran the hydraulic ram and his assistant’s job was to pull the shells and cased propellant charges from the lockers in the front of the Skorpion. To Olli’s surprise, much of the optical equipment had originally been designed for use by Naval Destroyers and adapted for use on land. Of course, the Skorpion was also played the role of self-propelled artillery superbly. The Heer regarded that last part as a happy accident, though it had guaranteed that there were almost as many Skorpions and Lynx I Skorpion conversions as there were Lynx IIs.
When Olli Bauer had received his most recent promotion, to Stabsfeldwebel-Lieutenant it had marked the pinnacle of his career as an enlisted man. It was the highest rank of Warrant Officer could aspire to in the Heer and to go any higher would require taking a Commission, something that Olli’s lack of formal education would make nearly impossible. He was also regarded as a specialist in Armored Warfare to the exclusion of nearly everything else.
The promotion had come with a transfer to Wunsdorf-Zossen to take command of a Jagdpanzer Company in the 26th Jagdpanzer Battalion that was presently attached to the 4th Panzer Division. Olli had also been invited to Berlin with his wife and children so that he could receive the Order of the Red Eagle, Enlisted Medal for a lifetime of service.
Nele wasn’t taking this latest move as well as she had taken other moves in the past. She was pressuring Olli into taking early retirement. With his present rank and the medals that he had received, Olli could receive a few thousand hectares of Crown land in South-Eastern Poland, he only needed to live there and put it to productive use. Admittedly that was probably the best deal that he would receive in his lifetime and living on a proper farm without the specter of having to move every couple years would be good for the children, however he was a bit reluctant to end his career just yet. Olli couldn’t help but feel that he would be giving up the part of himself that had run away from home in search of adventure more than twenty years earlier. Retiring to a farm would mean that his life would have come full circle and that was something that he wasn’t ready for yet.
A few hundred meters away, one of the Skorpions fired its main gun. Olli saw the flash and smoke vented to either side as the muzzle brake vented the blast. Regardless of whatever he decided to do next, Olli knew that he would probably have a bit of fun while he was with this outfit.
1st December 1960
Hindenburg, Upper Silesia
The instant he arrived at the freight depot Job saw that he had a major problem on his hands. Much of the produce that the invoice said was bound from the warehouses near Berlin wasn’t in the crates that had just been unloaded from the train. His job was on the line because his employer simply didn’t trust him. It was hardly Job’s fault. He had been told that during the war he had had suffered a shrapnel injury to the head, something that he had no memory of. It was one of many things that he had no memory of. There were times when his head was buzzing and then things went black. He would lose hours, if not days when that happened. The cruel irony was that he could remember the weeks leading up to his injury more clearly than he saw the world around him in the present with the summer spent in the horrifying meatgrinder that the stationary front in Southern Belarus became that summer forever burned into his mind.
Shaking off the memory that had just came to him unbidden, Job circled the affected numbers and wrote in the numbers of produce crates that had actually come in before giving a carbon copy to the clerk in the freight depot. In doing so, he was making it the management’s problem, but that was how he was supposed to do it, officially anyway. Unofficially, his boss would be furious about having to fight with the shipping company in order to get the produce here from wherever it had been diverted to or else getting them to cough up the money for a service that they had failed to provide.
Because of that it took far less time to load the crates into the Kombi than it should have. The customers that were depending of Job to deliver what he had, and no one was going to be happy.
Wunsdorf-Zossen
Olli looked up at the almost comically long barrel of the Jagdpanzer VII that was his latest ride. Dubbed the Skorpion by the crews that served on the vehicles, it could fire a tungsten cored 12.8cm shell at nearly three times the speed of sound. The issue that created involved the compromises that had been required to adapt the massive gun to the hull of a Panzer VII Lynx. That was what had happened when the old Jagdtiger was deemed completely unsuitable for further operations and a lighter, more practical, vehicle was called for that still kept the devastating power of the main gun.
The open topped turret was a similar solution that the Americans had made with their M-18 tank destroyer years before. Even as wide and as long as it could be designed, the main gun took up much of the interior space. Crammed into one side was the Panzer Commander and the Gunner, that was hardly unique to this particular vehicle. On the other side were the Loader and the Assistant Loader. The Loader ran the hydraulic ram and his assistant’s job was to pull the shells and cased propellant charges from the lockers in the front of the Skorpion. To Olli’s surprise, much of the optical equipment had originally been designed for use by Naval Destroyers and adapted for use on land. Of course, the Skorpion was also played the role of self-propelled artillery superbly. The Heer regarded that last part as a happy accident, though it had guaranteed that there were almost as many Skorpions and Lynx I Skorpion conversions as there were Lynx IIs.
When Olli Bauer had received his most recent promotion, to Stabsfeldwebel-Lieutenant it had marked the pinnacle of his career as an enlisted man. It was the highest rank of Warrant Officer could aspire to in the Heer and to go any higher would require taking a Commission, something that Olli’s lack of formal education would make nearly impossible. He was also regarded as a specialist in Armored Warfare to the exclusion of nearly everything else.
The promotion had come with a transfer to Wunsdorf-Zossen to take command of a Jagdpanzer Company in the 26th Jagdpanzer Battalion that was presently attached to the 4th Panzer Division. Olli had also been invited to Berlin with his wife and children so that he could receive the Order of the Red Eagle, Enlisted Medal for a lifetime of service.
Nele wasn’t taking this latest move as well as she had taken other moves in the past. She was pressuring Olli into taking early retirement. With his present rank and the medals that he had received, Olli could receive a few thousand hectares of Crown land in South-Eastern Poland, he only needed to live there and put it to productive use. Admittedly that was probably the best deal that he would receive in his lifetime and living on a proper farm without the specter of having to move every couple years would be good for the children, however he was a bit reluctant to end his career just yet. Olli couldn’t help but feel that he would be giving up the part of himself that had run away from home in search of adventure more than twenty years earlier. Retiring to a farm would mean that his life would have come full circle and that was something that he wasn’t ready for yet.
A few hundred meters away, one of the Skorpions fired its main gun. Olli saw the flash and smoke vented to either side as the muzzle brake vented the blast. Regardless of whatever he decided to do next, Olli knew that he would probably have a bit of fun while he was with this outfit.
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I am calling a red herring on Job, no doubt that there is something significant about him but if we are looking at him, then we are looking in the wrong direction.
He may be the key but the more important question is to which door?
Apparently Poland is still having problems restoring their agricultural sector and needs more farmers especially where the heaviest fighting at the beginning of the war was.
Offering lands to retiring veterans may help but Poland may have to do something radical to put that part of the country back to full production.
He may be the key but the more important question is to which door?
Apparently Poland is still having problems restoring their agricultural sector and needs more farmers especially where the heaviest fighting at the beginning of the war was.
Offering lands to retiring veterans may help but Poland may have to do something radical to put that part of the country back to full production.